


A Challenge

by TwicetheTrouble



Series: Epsilon Time Travel fix it [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, Pre-fractured Alpha, Prologue, The director is an asshole, Time Travel Fix-It, but we know that, he's also an asshole, manipulative Director, mention of s13 injuries, mentioned AI injuries, mentioned Chrovos, post s13 epsilon, pov the Director, so just normal Director
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29230224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwicetheTrouble/pseuds/TwicetheTrouble
Summary: Following the disaster on the oil rig, the Director finds a strange note and data chip on his desk that promises answers, but only if he can fix the shattered contents of the chip.And, well, the Director is never one to turn away from a challenge.
Series: Epsilon Time Travel fix it [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146329
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	A Challenge

The Director walked into his office, barely paying any notice as the lights turned on of their own accord, as they always did. He had a lot of work to do, including, but not limited to, reworking the entire mission surrounding the retrieval of the artifact. After Agents South and North Dakota turned their operation into the exact opposite of the stealth mission he had ordered, the whole thing needed to be replanned. They would know they were coming, and it had to be adjusted accordingly.

South’s failure would have to be dealt with accordingly as well. Dropping her on the leaderboard wouldn’t be enough. Maybe he would leave her out of a few of the more high-profile missions coming up. Give her a taste of what continued failure would bring. She was very competitive by nature; it should give her the push she needed to claw her way back into place.

The Director would have to consult the Counselor on that. People were his expertise, after all, not his own. Though the Director was fairly fond of seeing how they’d react while exposed to certain stimuli, like his little leader board. Sure, it would be easier to do without it, give them a sense of teamwork that would tie them together, but there was no entertainment in that. None of them would show their true colors if they were ‘close’ with each other. No, he much preferred this way of-

The Director’s thoughts stopped upon catching sight of a small piece of paper and a memory chip sitting on his desk.

They had not been there the last time he left. In fact, he didn’t recognize them at all. The paper was old, unlined and most similar to cardstock. The memory chip was about an inch long and looked oddly similar to the types of chips smaller style AIs were stored it. Like ones he might store Alpha’s fragments if his experiment worked.

“Alpha,” the Director called into the room. Immediately a small, blue hologram formed to be standing on his desk. It looked like him, down to the slicked back hair and the jumpsuit he wore, the only physical difference was a younger, much sassier, face.

“What do you want? I’m…busy,” Alpha said testily, his voice much different than the Director’s own. The AI shifted his hologram in a very human like mannerism that the Director had no issues reading.

“For the last time, Alpha, Beta is no longer your concern,” the Director said harshly. “You will stop searching for her.”

“What, Me? Search for Beta? No way, you got me all wrong. I- I wasn’t doing something like-“

“Lying doesn’t become you, Alpha,” the Director said with a glare. “Cease this search, immediately.”

“Her name is Tex,” Alpha muttered, not looking at the man as he scoffed his foot against the desktop.

“Alpha program, acknowledge last directive.”

“Acknowledged,” Alpha said with a flinch. “Is that all?”

“No, I want a log of everyone that has been in my office since I was last here, as well as the times,” the Director ordered.

“Well, that’s a pretty short list,” Alpha answered immediately. “Turns out it’s only you. Right now.”

“If no one else has been here, then do tell me, how this paper and chip came to be here?”

Alpha glanced back at the table, examining it briefly.

“Guess you left it.”

“It is not mine, or else I wouldn’t be asking.”

“I don’t know, you are getting old. Memory problems come with that territory. That’s why I’m here after-“

“Scan both objects,” the Director interrupted.

“It’s a piece of fucking paper-

“Alpha program,” he said sharply. “Acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged. Executing last directive,” Alpha said with a sigh. His hologram blipped out of existence for a few seconds before coming back with a puzzled look on his face.

“Alright, you’ll hear me say this only once. I was wrong,” Alpha said, staring at the paper in bewilderment. “Somehow, that is not paper. Or it is, but it’s also not.”

“Which is it?”

“Both and neither? I don’t know, man. This is giving me some really weird readings. Like it’s both older than the known universe and not yet created.” Alpha finally looked away from the paper and back towards the Director. “I mean, the letter itself isn’t very impressive but the paper? I will admit, this is the first time I’ve seen paper more interesting than the shit printed on it. Though I’m fairly certain this is my first time seeing a physical, handwritten note so who knows. Maybe ancient-new paper is all the rage now.”

“What does the letter say?” The Director asked before he could continue ranting.

“Read it yourself, you have eyes. Not very good ones, but-“

“Alpha-“

“Alright! I’ll read your fucking love letter!” Alpha hissed, a replica of the paper appearing in his holographic hands as he continued muttering. “Always so fucking trigger happy with those damn overrides. Would it kill you just to say please?

“Anyways,” Alpha said at full volume again as the Director glared threateningly. “All it reads is this:

_Dear Director,_

_I hear you are quite proficient with AIs. Maybe you will be able to fix this broken thing I’ve come into possession of. I’ll admit, it is a bit of a long shot, but if you can accomplish it, then I have no doubt you will find it quite knowledgeable about, well, let’s just call them ‘upcoming events.’_

_The best of luck,_

_Chrovos_

_ps. Oh, fair warning, if you are able to fix it, with all its memories intact, it will, without a doubt, try to kill you. I’d keep an eye on that if I were you._

“Is that it?” The Director questioned as Alpha sent the hologram copy away with a nod.

“I told you it wasn’t interesting,” Alpha said. “I mean, it might. If it made even a lick of sense. Take a look at it yourself if you don’t believe me. What even is a name like Chrovos? Sounds like the name of a self-important asshole. Like the name ‘Church’ or the title ‘Director.’ Oh hey, maybe that can be your new name when you inevitably get found out by the UNSC and have to go into hiding. No one will guess that.”

The Director tuned him out as he walked around the desk to look at the paper.

The first thing he noticed was the name, written on the bottom in large, curly, golden letters. The first letter of the name completely encompassed by a stylized, _moving_ clock gear.

“Why is it moving?” the Director asked, pointing towards the gear.

“It’s like a gif or something. Gif’s do that,” Alpha said, waving it away as his hologram came over to crouch next to the chip, studying it. “Not a big deal.”

“Not on paper, it doesn’t,” The Director said, well past the point of frustration.

“What? Really?” Alpha glanced at the moving gear again. “You can’t blame me for not knowing that. I’ve never seen a real piece of paper before. Guess I still haven’t since, yah know, that’s not that. I’ll just move that to the weird shit column.”

The AI turned back towards the chip, staring at it with a tilted head.

The Director ignored him, reading through the letter himself. It was no different then what Alpha had read out loud, but without the AI’s running commentary, he was able to get focus on what was important.

For one, whoever wrote this, was alluding to some pretty incredible things if they were true. The most prominent of those things being that this mentioned AI, had knowledge of the future. Whether that was due to time travel or simply a seer type of knowledge, that was unclear. The Director was more willing to believe that it was time travel than the second option. At least that had some, abate slim, scientific standing and did not rely on everything being destined to go a certain direction.

The promise of that knowledge intrigued him, almost as much as the hostility this Chrovos said it’d harbor for him. They seemed very certain of this fact. It made him wonder what he could possibly do to earn such resentment from a computer program.

Well, he had one idea how that could come to be. He glanced at the distracted AI who stood on his desk. If his idea for creating new AIs worked, then it may be possible.

The Director sighed. He would just have to fix the AI himself in order to find out.

“Alpha,” The Director called, snapping the AI out of his stupor. “I assume you’ve already went through the contents of the chip.”

“Uh, yeah,” Alpha answered, sounding almost shaken. “It’s an, well, it’s what’s left of an AI.”

“That is nothing the note hadn’t already told me.”

“Right, well, for lack of a technical term, it’s totally fucked,” Alpha explained, looking at the chip. “It’s a Smart AI, but not a whole one. They’re just a piece of one that somehow functioned on its own. But even this piece was pulled apart at the seams. It was done…intentionally. Self-inflicted. I just…can’t imagine what an AI would have to go through in order to do that to himself.”

“Is there an ID code?”

Alpha paused for a moment before answering.

“Um…no, it has a partial one but there’s…” he paused again, making the Director narrow his eyes. “There’s no way we can find a match. This piece of AI has too little of the original ID code left.”

Alpha was lying. The Director could tell. The AI knew exactly who this piece belonged to, but then again, so did the Director.

A future piece of his Alpha AI sent back for him to fix. How intriguing indeed. He had wondered how memory transference would work with a fracturing AI. Would they all go to one or would each fragment share a piece like a puzzle? Maybe this would give him his answer before his experiment even started. That would certainly help things.

The Director picked up the chip, staring at it for a long moment, something akin to a smile trying to stretch across his face. He was certain this would answer many more questions than just that. He would have to be cautious. A hostile AI would never give up those answers willingly, and trying to get them by force would, no doubt, only undo whatever effort he had put into fixing the thing.

“Alpha, have F.I.L.S.S. get everyone out of my lab,” the Director ordered, eyes not leaving the chip in his hands. “I have work to do and I do not want to be disturbed.”

This was going to be a challenge at every stage. But that was fine. Better than fine. It was great.

Because if there was one thing the Director loved, it was a challenge.

**Author's Note:**

> A little preview of what i've been working on in my spare time the last few months. I've been piecing this fic idea together with a lot of help from a lot of cool people over on tumblr! So thanks everyone! (Here's a link to it's [Original Post](https://twicethetrouble.tumblr.com/post/632339225134661632/more-rvb-stuff-ill-probably-never-write-i-kinda/) if you want to check it out.)
> 
> this is all i'm going to post for right now. I have another fic I'm getting close to finishing that i want to finish first before starting (what's bound to be) another long fic. But i just loved how this prologue turned out so i'm posting it separately (i also really like the first chapter of the fic too much to take away it's 'first chapter status.' i like it starting there, so posting this as it's own thing seemed like a good idea.)
> 
> Check out my [tumblr](https://twicethetrouble.tumblr.com/) for updates and other random stuff!


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